Introducing private extension apps

At Docusign, we envision a world where creating, committing, and managing agreements is seamless, scalable, and intelligent. To realize this vision, we launched Docusign Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) last year—a revolutionary platform designed to free businesses from the costly and inefficient Agreement Trap, caused by manual processes and disconnected workflows.

Today, we’re excited to announce a major milestone in our IAM journey: the Beta launch of Docusign private extension apps. This transformative new capability empowers businesses to securely connect their internal systems to Docusign IAM and automate key actions such as real-time data verification, database updates, or automatic document storage—before, during, and after signing—all without writing a single line of code.

Why private extension apps? 

To fully unlock the potential of IAM, businesses must be able to securely and seamlessly connect their internal, mission-critical systems—such as CRM platforms, ERPs, databases, or proprietary applications—with Docusign IAM. While Docusign public extension apps in the App Center have enabled smooth connection with external systems like Salesforce, SAP, HubSpot, and Workday, etc., internal systems have remained disconnected—resulting in three main challenges: 

• Incomplete workflows: Manual intervention required to retrieve or input data into internal systems, causing delays and operational inefficiencies.

• Increased errors: Manual data entry during agreement creation, increasing the risk of mistakes and leading to Not-in-Good-Order (NIGO) agreements. 

• Costly, redundant integrations: Different business units (BU) within a company often end up building expensive custom integrations with the same internal systems. 

Private extension apps solve these challenges. With private extension apps, businesses can now: 

• Fully automate workflows by connecting both internal and external systems with Docusign IAM, eliminating the need for manual data handling.

• Reduce agreement errors by verifying user inputs or auto-filling fields in real-time using data from internal systems, minimizing NIGO agreements.

• Scale integrations by reusing a single private extension app across multiple business units, reducing integration costs and ensuring workflow consistency.

What use cases can you enable with private extension apps?

With private extension apps, you can support a wide range of real-world agreement use cases, including:

• Data verification: Automatically cross-reference critical agreement details such as credit limits and transaction histories before approval, reducing risk and ensuring compliance.

• Identity verification: Instantly verify user identities against internal customer records, ensuring regulatory compliance and streamlining verification processes.

• Prefill agreements: Auto-fill forms by pulling data directly from internal CRM systems, enhancing user experience and reducing manual data entry mistakes. 

• Retrieve and archive agreements: Automatically retrieve agreements from internal CMS systems or archive them post-signing for compliance, audit readiness, or downstream workflows.

• Read and writeback data: Instantly sync data between agreements and business-critical internal systems (e.g., proprietary insurance quote engine), before or after the signing.

Get Started with Private Extension Apps Today!

The Private Extension App feature is now available globally (except Japan) in beta. Getting started is straightforward:

• Build: Create your extension app using our powerful extensions —such as File Archive, Data IO, or Connected Fields—to integrate your internal systems with Docusign IAM.

• Register: Visit the Docusign Developer Console to register your app as private.

• Distribute: Share your private app seamlessly across your organization’s business units.

Whether you're a corporate developer, system integrator (SI), or independent software vendor (ISV), this is your opportunity to fully automate your agreement lifecycle, eliminate manual bottlenecks, and finally escape the Agreement Trap.

Ready to revolutionize the way you manage your agreements? Start building your private app.

To dive deeper, explore how developers are:

• Implementing data input output to keep systems in sync and eliminate manual work in our Data IO Blog.

• Building data verification workflows using the Connected Fields API and extension apps in our Data Verification Blog.